


Trouble Comes in Threes

by thisbluespirit



Category: Dracula (TV 1968)
Genre: Castles, Cliche, Dr Seward only faints once, F/M, Imprisonment, Multi, Post-Canon, Random Pairing Generator, Request Meme, Science Experiments, Waxwork dummies, duplicates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 00:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15037076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: It appears that the Harkers and Dr Seward are now doomed to run into danger of the supernatural kind wherever they go…





	Trouble Comes in Threes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



> From the random generator prompt "mina/john/jonathan – clones & restrained & fair/amusement park" in a Dreamwidth meme. (Clones here in the more general sense of 'duplicates'.)
> 
> This is a random (slightly ridiculous) post-canon adventure, but it should be noted that the 1968 TV Dracula has some noticeable differences in characterisation (Dr Seward is something of a fainting snowflake, Jonathan is conflated with Renfield and is _really_ into Dracula and not Mina and Van Helsing is more ruthless). Professor Reizler also comes courtesy of the adaptation, as Van Helsing mentions him as a current expert on Vampires, based in Vienna.

Mina was the first to recover her senses, finding herself lying on a stone floor in a tangled heap of bodies that, when she extracted herself, proved to consist of herself, Jonathan, and John. They must have been drugged and brought down here, but why? A glance down at herself showed something even stranger: they had changed her dress. She had been wearing blue; now she was wearing what appeared, possibly unreliably in the gloom, to be burgundy.

To the side of her, John gave a groan and then pulled himself out from under Jonathan. “Mrs Harker,” he said, and then coughed, putting a hand up to his head. “What happened?” He turned instinctively towards Jonathan, as if to wake him, but Mina put out a hand to stop him.

“Oh, no, don’t,” she said. “I am so worried this might have _upset_ him again.”

John followed her gaze. “Oh, I’m sure it won’t have done.” But he frowned and refrained from disturbing Jonathan.

“Let us think back over yesterday’s events and that way, I hope, make sense of it,” said Mina. 

Professor Van Helsing, who had brought them all to Vienna to visit his friend Professor Reizler, in order to compare notes on vampires, had been very busy doing just that, so the Harkers and Dr Seward had accepted an invitation from an acquaintance of Reizler’s by the name of Pichler, who had an amusement hall, with wax figures and clockwork creatures. Reizler had a side interest in helping to build some of the mechanical creatures. (It was most illuminating work, he had told Van Helsing. He found it fascinating.) Pichler’s amusement hall was currently being extended into a park, with money from his patrons Freiherr von Mensdorf and Sir Robert Ardale.

Mina had thought the exhibits unnerving – the wax figures tended to shocking murders such as one might see at Madame Tussauds and her fairground imitators, while the mechanical figures might have been less bloody, but in the shadowy old castle just outside the city, their dancing or playing of musical instruments seemed sinister; jerky prisoners trapped repeating and repeating one movement. Mina gave a shiver at the memory.

“All those lifelike figures,” she said, when John looked at her in concern. “So very uncanny even when one knows they are not real.”

John nodded. “Yes. Not what I’d expected after hearing Professor Reizler talk about the scientific side of it – reproducing some semblance of human anatomy in metal and all that. Mannequins!” He gave a snort. “Not how I would have preferred to spend the day, even without such an unpleasant ending.” He put his hands in his pockets and then stared at her. “What the devil? This isn’t my jacket!”

“I don’t think all the figures _were_ entirely mechanical,” Jonathan said, proving to be awake and listening. He sat up, and Mina hastened to sit beside him. “That odd tableau at the end – that was quite different, wasn’t it?”

John’s brow furrowed. “But the wretched things _moved_. What else could they have been? Actors, I suppose. Some parlour trick.”

“Well, there must be something strange going on,” said Mina, “otherwise we would not be here. Now that I think back, the last thing I remember is his taking us back to the living quarters for coffee and cakes afterwards. I suppose he must have drugged the coffee.”

John nodded. “Yes. I don’t recall anything else, either. It’s no way to treat guests!”

“No, it isn’t,” said Mina, pausing to pat his arm even as she glanced at Jonathan. “But what was it that you thought so odd, my love?”

“Didn’t you notice? Herr Pichler’s library had a collection that was almost as strange as the Count’s. A number of them had pentagrams and sigils of one kind or another on the covers. I don’t think it’s clockwork that Herr Pichler is interested in, whatever Professor Reizler believes. His true passion seems to lie in the Occult. Perhaps they use his mechanical creations as a front to hide a more improbable truth?”

Mina raised her eyebrows. “Oh, dear, not _more_ supernatural trouble? I suppose we should have known that to accompany the Professor to Vienna to visit his friend could only end this way. But surely you are not suggesting that they practice magic _successfully_ , Jonathan?”

“I was looking at the books, as I said,” he explained. “So I drank my coffee a little after the two of you, and before I passed out one of them began reciting a spell. I couldn’t take in much, but in that state it almost seemed to make sense anyhow. It’s gone now, but I’m sure they were using us for something, or meant to. We were an important part of their witchcraft.”

Mina took his hand. “You _are_ all right, aren’t you, dearest?” She did so hate it if he even talked of the Count, afraid of the light of enthusiasm that might come into his eyes and steal him away from her again. She had already lost Lucy; she had no wish to sacrifice anyone else to any creatures of the night, whatever shape they took.

“We seem to have been drugged and locked in a dungeon by some sinister Austrian businessman for purposes unknown,” Jonathan pointed out, “but otherwise, yes. I remain myself.”

John stood. “Well, yes, and the first thing is that we must get out. The Professor will come looking for us, but I’m not sure how long it might take before he and Reizler finally emerge from their studies sufficiently to realise we’re missing.” He crossed to the wooden door, examining it carefully. “Solid,” he murmured with regret. “How about the window, Harker?”

Jonathan had been trying, and now turned around to face the other two. “It’s not much use, either, I’m afraid.”

“No, it is not,” said Herr Pichler in the doorway. “You will find this place is completely secure. I have made quite certain of that.” 

He was holding a gun. John started and backed away, while Mina gripped Jonathan’s arm. He hung onto her in return.

“What the devil do you want with us?” said John. “I demand that you let us go immediately! Professor van Helsing and Professor Reizler know exactly where we are, and I’m sure the British Ambassador won’t be amused to find you’ve abducted us. You would be better off letting us go at once.”

Herr Pichler laughed. “Oh, they won’t discover anything of the sort. Nobody will ever realise that you are missing – to all effects and purposes, you will _not_ be.”

Three figures moved forward from behind him, walking into the dungeon, illuminated by the light from the corridor: Mina, Jonathan, and John, to the life, and wearing their missing clothes. Mina bit back a gasp and, after a moment, of staring, John collapsed, slumping onto the stone floor with a thud.

“Oh, dear,” said Mina, still holding onto Jonathan. “You’d think by now he’d have grown more used to the uncanny. _Poor_ John.”

Jonathan tilted his head to one side, watching their doppelgangers. “These copies don’t seem very lively to me. The Professor will spot the difference in no time.”

If he wasn’t still too much engaged with discussing vampires with Professor Reizler, that was, Mina thought, but refrained from saying anything so unhelpful.

“Quite,” said John from the floor, pulling himself back into a sitting position, and putting a hand to his head. “As I said – best to let us go now! This is completely outrageous.”

Herr Pichler only gave another laugh. “Oh, no need to concern yourselves with that idea. They will, naturally, bring Reizler back here to work for us, and we will make a similar copy of your friend Van Helsing before we dispose of him. He is, we feel, too dangerous to live.”

“But… _how_?” asked John. “How did you do any of it?”

“A good question,” Herr Pichler said. “We had been working on the problem of true animation for quite some time, but while we could work the spell for a limited period, it did not last. Then Professor Reizler talked a little too much of vampire hunting and of his eminent friend Van Helsing. We believed the three of you might have what we had been lacking for the spell. And so it proved! So, you see, we are not in any hurry to part with you. But do not fear – we will are even now preparing better, more permanent, quarters for you.”

John pulled himself off the floor, moving nearer to the Harkers, and the three instinctively closed in together against Herr Pichler and his uncanny duplicates.

“Why, though?” asked Mina. “What good will it do you to make such toys?”

Herr Pichler laughed yet again. “Being able to copy any living being we chose, fashion their likeness in wax and animate and control it? I am sure even you dull English can imagine the possibilities!”

“But your patrons – Baron von Mensdorf and Sir Robert – surely they won’t approve?” Mina said.

“Who do you think asked me to find a way to perfect my sorcery but the Freiherr?” said Herr Pichler. “As for Ardale, he had heard of us through the Golden Dawn and, having been cast out of their organisation, he sees this as a means of leaping directly from that sad state to Adeptus or Magister or some such, so he pays us well for our work. At some point, we shall probably also have to kill him, for he is a fool, but not yet.”

Pichler then waved at the three copies, who left silently, much to the relief of the original versions. There was, Mina admitted, something deeply uncanny about being confronted with oneself like that.

“So, now you know, and may resign yourselves to your fate,” said Herr before stepping back out of the dungeon, a guard locking the door behind him.

 

“This is very bad,” said Jonathan. “I don’t see what we can do.”

John was frowning again. “Our blood. He said it had what he was looking for – but you are both cured of the Count’s influence and I was never bitten. But what else could he mean?”

“No,” said Mina, “but this seems to be a mystical affair – which I suppose we must now also accept – and all three of us were touched, one way or another. Lucy bit me, the Count took hold of Jonathan’s mind, and he drank your blood through Lucy. I suppose that might be enough to make a difference to their horrid spells.”

“I don’t know,” John said. “It’s one thing to accept that there are creatures out there that science has missed or not yet explained, but magic? Animating wax figures? It must be a trick.”

Mina gave him her other hand. “Don’t you think, dear, that for the moment, it might be wisest to assume that they _can_ do what they claim? In the light of what has transpired so far.”

“In theory, I suppose,” John conceded grudgingly, and then looked to Jonathan. “You’re all right, Harker?”

“I wish the two of you would stop asking me that. I am not enjoying being back in a dungeon, nor did I much care for that business with the werewolves on the trip over, nor the poltergeist back in Whitby, but my mind is still whole. Disturbed, yes, but nothing more.”

“You’re not strong, though,” said John. “Not eating properly for that length of time – it takes a toll, even aside from everything else. And everywhere Van Helsing goes, there seems to be trouble like this, which can hardly help in restoring your mind. I should have refused to agree to this trip, but Van Helsing was insistent about the importance of putting an end to any other vampires that might yet exist. And now we are confronted with this!”

Mina pulled a rueful grimace. “I’m not sure at this point that the problem is the Professor. I think we three may be the attraction – we must be marked now, I imagine. And at least the Professor does usually find a solution, even if his ideas are rarely pleasant.”

“Better to stick together, eh?” said John, rising and crossing to the door to look out into the corridor. “You may be right.”

Mina exchanged a glance with Jonathan, who bit down on a laugh. “Precisely what we were thinking.”

“What?” said John, turning back. “Did you say something?”

Mina shook her head. “Nothing that cannot wait for a better moment – indeed it must.”

“I suppose the only thing we can do now,” said John,” is hope one of these villains comes back and try and overpower them when they do. I’ll stay by the door and keep watch.”

 

However, it was not a guard or Herr Pichler who came for them, but the three copies, moving with unnerving silent agreement. They were armed, but when they marched them out, Mina wondered that they bothered for the closeness made her feel weak and light-headed – something about the magic that animated them was still having an effect on her, and presumably on Jonathan and John. 

“Where are you taking us?” John managed, struggling to sound authoritative and failing.

‘Mina’ turned her head. “To your new quarters, of course. You are very important to Herr Pichler, and we want you to be comfortable. You shall lack nothing.”

“Except freedom,” said Jonathan, “and the choice not to take part in his schemes.”

“Except for that,” the copy agreed pleasantly. “We must all do what Herr Pichler and the Freiherr wish.”

They led them up a stone spiral staircase and into a comfortably furnished suite of rooms, with cushioned sofas and thick rugs in the sitting room – but the window was still narrow and barred and the door built of equally solid wood with bolts and a lock. Once they had been ushered inside, the copy of Jonathan caught hold of Mina, while the other two living mannequins kept John and Jonathan covered and then they led her away.

They took her down the main staircase this time, and then along a corridor to what must be the laboratory, where Herr Pichler was waiting. There they tied her to a table, and Herr Pichler extracted another small sample of her blood, which was painful, but what caused her to pass out was the effect of the spell they muttered over her. She struggled to stay awake, but to no avail.

 

She opened her eyes again, sitting up in a panic, but Herr Pichler and the copies had gone. She was lying on a bed, and it was John who caught hold of her hand, and smiled down at her, gently pressing her back down with his other hand. “Mina. No, no, lie still, at least for the moment.”

“They brought you back about ten minutes ago,” said Jonathan from the other side of her. “What did they do to you? The devils!”

She was back in the apartment, lying on a four-poster bed with red velvet hangings. She wasn’t sure it was much of an improvement on the laboratory, but at least it was more comfortable. 

“I don’t know. I think it must have been the same process to which they subjected all three of us before, only we were unconscious then. They took a little blood, and then Herr Pichler and some of his people chanted over me – it made me feel terribly light-headed and I passed out.”

“You seem unharmed as far as I can tell,” said John, giving her a cursory but concerned examination. “Thank goodness.”

Jonathan kissed her cheek. “But presumably this means they have made another copy of someone. We can’t let this continue.”

“No, indeed,” said another voice and all three of them looked across to see Sir Robert Ardale standing in the doorway with a gun.

Jonathan sprang up, while John shifted his position, shielding Mina, which she thought was very nice of him, but rather impractical as now she had to sit up to look at their visitor properly.

Sir Robert stepped inside, pushing the door shut behind him. “I’ve come to help you out, if you’ll help me in return.”

“Help you?” said Jonathan. “After what you have done?”

“I cannot imagine that your aims are any better than Herr Pichler’s, or Baron von Mensdorf’s,” Mina added. “Why should we?”

“I overheard Pichler earlier,” said Sir Robert. “He means to kill me, he said. After all I’ve done for him! Probably copy _me_ , too and send the wretched thing to my bankers whenever he wants more money, damn him! I thought I’d have more chance of getting out with your help.”

The three of them looked at each other.

“I don’t see that we have any choice,” said John, “but don’t try any tricks!”

Sir Robert sighed. “He has a whole band of followers, several mechanical figures and devices and now at least four of these devilish creatures of his. And there’s a spell round the place. I have not a hope of breaking out alone – and since Pichler has already declared his intention to kill me, while he needs you alive, you have less to fear from making the attempt than I.”

“You can’t fault his logic,” said Jonathan, “and comfortable as this place is, I don’t want to spend any more time in a cell.”

Mina nodded. She drew herself up and looked at Sir Robert. “You have a plan?”

“There is,” said Robert, “just one chance. We have to get to that precious laboratory of his and set the place alight.”

“Arson?” said John in alarm. “I don’t know – might be going a bit far.”

The Harkers looked at him.

“Yes, I suppose it’s justified,” he said, coughing. “In the circumstances. Can’t have him building that amusement park of his and doing God knows what with it.”

Sir Robert managed a grin. “Not, God, sir – the devil alone knows what he intends. Now, follow me!”

 

It was as they were making a hasty escape from the now-blazing castle that they all but ran straight into Van Helsing and Professor Reizler, heading up the winding road towards them.

“John,” said Van Helsing, catching hold of him in his relief, before turning to Mina and Jonathan. “And Harker and Mrs Harker also! I had feared I might be too late to save you, but I see now that I am only too late to assist you in besting this villain.”

Professor Reizler came puffing up behind his eminent colleague. “I am most sorry,” he added, out of breath, “I had no notion Pichler had such diabolical ideas! I fear I may even have lent him one or two of my more arcane volumes without any thought that he might put them to a more practical use. Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

They all turned to survey the burning building behind them.

“Well, it is all over now, Professor Reizler,” said Mina, putting one hand through Jonathan’s arm and the other through John’s. “And how could you be expected to guess that anyone would do such a thing?”

John was frowning. “Professor, if you’re here, that must surely mean he sent those three wretched copies of us to the house? And if so . . . where are they?”

“Oh, you need not worry,” said Van Helsing, “they are now rendered entirely inert and harmless. As Reizler has said, it was one of his volumes that contained the incantation that created them, so we only had to find and reverse the spell, although,” he added, dabbing his face with his handkerchief at the memory, “there were one or two moments where I confess I thought we might not have the chance.”

“We avoided trouble by behaving as if we suspected nothing,” Reizler added, “although it was difficult to assemble some of the necessary ingredients without attracting their attention – but they were not yet sophisticated enough to spot understand what we were about, as long as we kept up appearances.”

“Talking of which,” said Jonathan, “how did you realise they weren’t us?”

“We did note you all seemed a little subdued, but we supposed you must be tired after your outing. However,” said Van Helsing, “the copy of John then made the foolish mistake of being enthusiastic about one of my more outlandish conclusions concerning vampires, and I knew he could not be himself.” He laughed, and patted John’s arm. “So keep up your scepticism, my friend! It may have saved our lives.”

“You know,” Professor Reizler said, “I think we should return to my home as swiftly as possible. When the authorities arrive, they might not be sympathetic as to our motives in burning down the castle and the amusement hall. I have noticed,” he said, with a wistful note, “that it is so often so.”

As they headed away, his English visitors had to agree that, yes, indeed, the authorities could be most tiresome when it came to accepting things that had to be done in order to defeat evil. Van Helsing, however, was more interested in the details of what that had involved in this case.

Mina glanced first at Jonathan and then at John.

“We had some help from a Sir Robert Ardale,” said John. “An unpleasant sort of chap who had been working with Pichler and the Baron, but he came through in the end.” He screwed up his face. “Not a pleasant fate, though, even for a fellow like that.”

“No,” Jonathan agreed, sober at the memory. 

“Poor Sir Robert,” said Mina with a small shiver. “It makes me quite sick to think of it. Still, at least he took that dreadful Herr Pichler with him, so his sacrifice was not in vain.”

 

Once back at Professor Reizler’s house, they headed to their rooms to change into clothes that were their own and not singed and John muttered something about treating their burns. They had escaped relative unscathed, but not without being singed at the edges, so he no doubt had a point.

“Yes, do,” said Mina, catching at his sleeve. “Come and see us as soon as you can. We have something we wish to ask you.”

 

When John finally appeared, he was in a distracted state, putting his bag down one minute and then looking for it elsewhere again. 

“John,” said Mina, “we have been thinking and we wonder if you –”

“Do you know what he’s done?” said John, in too much of a state to listen. “It really is the outside of enough! I shall return to England tomorrow if he persists!”

Jonathan put a hand to Mina’s arm. “By ‘he’ I take it you mean Van Helsing?”

“Yes, who else?” said John, sitting down next to them on the bed, and running his hand through his hair. “He has _kept_ those mannequins of us. They’re quite harmless now, so he says, and he wishes to examine them more closely! He’s down there now, doing post mortems on all three, with Professor Reizler’s willing assistance and a whole shelf full of spell books and suchlike. I should have thought that he’d have to decency to dispose of them somewhere out of our sight – next he’ll be trying to re-animate them, and then where will we be?”

Mina bit her lip. “Oh, dear. That really is too bad of him. Still, I suppose he thinks he can prevent it happening again – or harness these forces for the benefit of mankind, instead of just Herr Pichler and the Baron.”

“Perhaps,” said John. “If you ask me, I think we should all go back to Whitby and leave him to it. I agreed to this trip – under protest – since I don’t want any more damned vampires wandering about, killing anyone else like the Count did Lucy, but I did _not_ consent to standing around while Van Helsing experiments on wax copies of us.”

“You said we should stick together earlier,” Jonathan pointed out. “We’ll have a word with the Professor in the morning, but in the meantime, if you can put your mind to something else, Mina and I have been thinking and we've something to ask you. Something personal.”

John turned his head, looking from one to the other, his brow creasing as he found no illumination there. “Eh?”

“John,” said Mina, taking his hand. “It’s really very simple. We don’t want you to be alone any more. And now that we have fallen into this odd adventure, with one unnatural encounter after another, it isn’t easy to invite anyone to share that.”

“And you can’t keep going from this sort of thing back to the asylum, alone,” said Jonathan. “So we thought you should stay with us instead.”

“Only the three of us truly understand,” said Mina. “We need each other. I think you know that, too.”

John tugged at his collar, and coughed. “I’ve got a cross in my pocket, you know,” he said, looking from one to the other. If it was true, he didn’t reach for it. He was waiting to be persuaded by them, Mina thought, glancing down to hide a small smile.

“We’re only asking,” she told him. “We aren’t still infected, I promise. It’s merely that – well –” She glanced down, colouring. “Jonathan may have recovered but he learnt several things about himself through his experience – and, fond as he is of me, I am not quite what he wants any more. I think that must have become obvious to you as well as to me. And you understand about Lucy – you are our dearest friend.”

John was sitting very still. “If I understand you aright, I ought to be outraged.”

“After the day we have just had?” said Mina, laughing, and kissing John’s cheek lightly. “It would be ridiculous, don’t you think?”

Jonathan rolled up his shirt sleeve. “Weren’t you going to bind up our wounds? I seem to have managed to burn myself in all the excitement – this arm. Probably when that curtain went up.”

“Oh, don’t let’s think of it,” said Mina, with a shudder. “I thought for a moment we were not going to escape at all, and I’d rather not remember.”

John gave a reluctant smile as he searched in his doctor’s bag and pulled out some ointment and gauze dressing. “Let see to that, eh, Harker. And you know, flattered as I am – I mean –” He stopped, coughed again, and attended to Jonathan. “It wouldn’t be on.”

“But you know how these creatures that we keep running into often play with one’s thoughts and feelings,” said Mina. “And if you go back to the asylum, always alone, and grieving over Lucy with only madmen for company, then sooner or later something will destroy you.”

“You’ve seen the sort of thing that can happen,” Jonathan added. “Look at me – left alone in the castle, failing to understand myself, missing Mina – and then –” He shrugged.

John replaced his medical bits and pieces in the bag. “Well, I trust this’ll be the last such encounter, so you needn’t worry.”

“Do you think that likely?” Mina cocked an eyebrow as she met his gaze, and the corners of her mouth quivered.

He gave in and laughed. “It _ought_ to be true. So, this is a rescue, is it? Taking pity on me, eh?”

The Harkers exchanged a glance.

“Well, yes,” said Mina, sliding her hand into John’s and still holding his gaze while Jonathan, on the other side, put a hand to his shoulder, “in some senses, but let me assure you that our motives are also as selfish as anyone could wish. Do stay.”

He did.


End file.
